But piety with contentment *is* great gain.
Paul has just described people who treat religion as a business. They imagine that being religious is a way to get rich. Here he takes their own word "gain" and turns it back on them. So what counts as real profit? And why must contentment go with godliness?
The idea Paul is answering is that a person is only godly for what he can get out of it.
The truth is that God, not gain, is the goal of godliness. Yet the Apostle strikingly adds, "godliness with contentment is great gain." To walk as in the presence of the living God, trusting His goodness with a contented heart, is very great gain of a spiritual kind.
Some translations use the word "piety" here. It points to a settled attitude toward God, not a religious pose.
Piety is confidence in the living God we know. That confidence leads the believer to walk in the holy fear of God through every circumstance of life. It recognises and honours God. So it is the very opposite of a show of holiness that seeks to exalt self.
Another writer spells out what that looks like day by day:
Now godliness means being conscious of God. It means living under the eye of God. It means having God as the trust and the glory of our hearts. Godliness like that, with the contentment that flows from it, is great gain.
Paul does not praise contentment by itself. Pagan writers already praised it, and praising it is not the same as living it.
Contentment on its own is not enough. By itself it would be no more than a heathen idea. In fact, plenty of pagan writers put it beautifully. But we may fear this was more what they could see a man ought to be than what they actually lived out day by day. The Stoics, who used such language most, were hard men rather than happy ones.
So the two words come in a fixed order, and the second grows out of the first.
Contentment alone could not be this great gain, for it would then be something the flesh glories in. Godliness must come first, and be the root cause of contentment. Paul was himself a true example of this.
Contentment like this rests on who does the giving — and the withholding. One writer has just pictured a polished knife put out of reach.
Earthly possessions are like that polished knife. If someone else has them, it is so they may be used for the glory of God. If God puts them beyond your reach, it is because they would hurt you if you had them. So let your heart be happy and contented. God is your Father, and He knows what is best for you. "He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things?"
Paul goes on to name the opposite of contentment. The danger is not the size of a bank balance but the direction of the will.
Wealth has its snares, as the Apostle shows a little later. But owning wealth does not necessarily ruin the soul. What ruins it is the "desire to be rich," and this word "desire" carries the idea of purpose. The danger is that the believer, instead of being content to earn his living, may set himself with purpose of heart to be rich. So riches become an object instead of the Lord.
This is not a theory to admire but a question to answer about your own ambitions.
I have to ask myself — and this time we cannot dodge these practical questions — am I going to be content to accept what God allots me as coming from His hand? Am I willing not to make it my great aim to become something other than I am, or to reach higher or greater things than I have? If so, that is great gain.
- Gain reversed. The false teachers made godliness a way to get rich. Paul answers that God, not gain, is the goal of godliness — and then calls godliness with contentment the great gain.
- Root first. Godliness comes first and produces contentment. On its own, contentment is something the flesh boasts in. Pagan writers praised it and were hard rather than happy men.
- Confidence, not pose. Godliness is confidence in the living God, carried into every circumstance. It is the opposite of a show of holiness that exalts self.
- Withheld in love. Contentment rests on the Father's wisdom. What He puts out of your reach, He keeps back because it would hurt you.
- The one thief. Owning things does not cancel the gain. Setting your purpose on being rich does, and it makes riches the object instead of the Lord.
For we have brought nothing into the world [it is] [manifest] that neither can we carry anything out.
You will leave this world just as you entered it. Paul builds an argument on that one fact. Why does so plain a truth need an apostle to say it? And what changes in the person who believes it?
Every reader already agrees with this verse. That is the strange part, as one writer points out. The problem is not knowing the fact but living against it.
Everyone knows that this often-quoted statement of the Apostle Paul to Timothy is a fact of life: "we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world." No special revelation is needed to grasp it. When we are born, we bring no possessions of any kind with us. We come to this earth naked. The same goes for the end of life here: no one can take a single penny with him or her for what lies beyond. Even so, we often live and act as if our possessions had been ours for hundreds of years. We act as if our life, our success and our happiness depended on our wealth. How short-sighted we often are!
The verse points at the two ends of a life. William Kelly asks who lives by what everyone can see:
He shows this and drives it home with the plain facts of how a person's life begins and ends here below. All can see those facts, but only people of faith act on them. Paul puts it so briefly and bluntly that we need not wonder if words added to explain him later crept into many manuscripts. The oldest authorities turn our entrance into the world with nothing into a solemn reminder that it will be the same at the close. So the two-fold truth bears on the believer all the way through his course. Compare Job 1:21, a saying voiced long ago, and as simple as it is sure. But only piety joined with "contentment" makes its weight felt and shapes a walk that matches the truth.
Job, in the Old Testament, lost his property at a stroke. What he said next shows what this truth looks like when a person stands on it.
Not a murmur escapes his lips at the loss of his property… He admits that nothing was his by right. He had come into the world naked, and would leave it as he came. But he turns from the stroke to the Hand that gave it. He looks past all second causes, whether human or miraculous, and lays his sorrow at the Lord's feet. "The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord."
If nothing comes in with us and nothing goes out, what are we while we hold things? One writer answers:
The things we have to deal with now are not our own things at all. They belong to another, even God. Our own things are on high, not here. Of possessions in this world, however valuable, however extensive, we are but life-renters. They are not our own. This casts a new light on all that people by nature seek to gain down here. And the future possession, which we so easily treat as vague and unreal, turns out to be solid and substantial.
The cost is not only foolishness at the end. There is a loss now, in what a Christian could be enjoying today.
Even true Christians may be hindered from laying hold on eternal life by the desire for present things. The pursuit of present possessions is very effective at preventing the enjoyment of the life that we have in Christ. That is why the apostle says, "we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world." This being so, is it not foolish for a Christian to pile up wealth in this world?
The fact sets a measure for daily life, and the measure is modest.
We entered the world with nothing; we go out with nothing. God may indeed give us much to enjoy. Even so, we should be content with just the necessaries of life — food and clothing. This sets a high standard before us, and few of us come up to it, though the Apostle himself did.
- Empty in. You arrived owning nothing. The verse starts where every human life starts, so no reader can claim it does not apply to them.
- Empty out. The way you came is the way you go. That double fact is meant to press on you the whole way through.
- On loan. Between those two moments you are a life-renter, not an owner. What you handle belongs to God; your own things are on high.
- Enough. The measure is food and clothing — a high standard few reach, and one Paul himself lived.
- Empty hands, full heart. Job lost his property and blessed the Lord's name. All can see this truth; only faith acts on it.
But having sustenance and covering, we will be content with these.
Paul has just said that we came into the world with nothing and will leave with nothing. Now he names what a Christian may treat as enough. The question is not how little a person can survive on. It is what a believer's heart is meant to want.
The two nouns cover more than they first seem to. Commentators also differ over the last clause: one reads it as a future statement rather than a command, while others read it as an appeal — let us be content with that.
The words translated food and covering are both plural. That may point to the variety God provides in each case. The "covering" is also not limited to clothing, and should not be translated that way, since it takes in a dwelling as well. The future tense seems stronger here than a command, and it suits the passive voice better.
Nothing we own is really ours to keep. We hold it for a while, then we leave it.
We have to recognise that we are only life tenants of all we have. We entered the world with nothing; we go out with nothing. God may indeed give us much for our enjoyment. But on the other hand we should be content with just the necessities of life — food and clothing. This sets a high standard before us, one that few of us come up to, though the apostle himself did.
The measure is set low enough that no one is shut out of it.
Having food and covering — and the slave had these things — let us be content with that.
One writer noticed that God sets the same measure for two very different people.
The Lord said what a stranger was to expect. Through Paul, the Holy Spirit says what a saint should expect. The two are the same. Deuteronomy 10:18; 1 Timothy 6:8.
The next verse warns that those who want to be rich fall into a trap. This verse is the door out of it.
In 1 Timothy 6:9 we read: "Those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs." This is God's moral grouping. This is what His mind ties to the commonest of all desires — the desire to be rich. And His path of escape is this: "But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content."
Contentment does not come from lowering what you want. It comes from having something better.
When a saint truly enjoys Christ, a thousand little things quietly drop away: having food and clothing, he is content with that. If my spirit is always occupied with the Lord as my portion, I shall be satisfied.
It also rests on trust in a Father's care. What He holds back would have harmed us.
Earthly possessions are like that polished knife. If someone else has them, it is so they may use them for the glory of God. If they are kept beyond your reach, it is because they would hurt you if you had them. Let your heart be happy and contented then, for God, who is your Father, knows what is best for you.
The verse does not ban property. It asks what your possessions are for.
There is nothing wrong in having this or that. The point is that the servant of God wants to be as free as possible to serve his Master as well as he can… It has been well said: "If our business or our possessions are our object, we make them as large as we can. If they are our burden, which we have to carry, we make them as small as we can."
- Nothing in, nothing out. We are life tenants, not owners; that fact, not poverty, is what sets the limit at food and covering.
- Enough is defined. "Covering" reaches past clothes to shelter. Both words are plural — God's provision has variety in it.
- Enough is reachable. The standard was already met in a slave's life, so no believer is shut out of contentment by circumstances.
- Enough is the escape. Contentment with the necessities is God's own way out of the snare that traps those who want to be rich.
- Enough rests on a Person. The satisfied heart is busy with Christ as its portion. It trusts that a Father holds back only what would wound.